SFMOMA donors dine on Picasso

CYNTHIA ROBINS

Published 4:00 am, Friday, January 17, 1997

1997-01-17 04:00:00 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- FRANCES BOWES, whippet-thin in royal blue Thierry Mugler and diamonds, was having a small hissy fit as she struggled with her computerized seating diagram for SFMOMA's directors' circle dinner Wednesday night. The elegant Ms. Bowes, the dinner chair, was mentally drawing and quartering party designer Stanlee Gatti, who, since he got rid of all of his tchotchkes in his garage sale last weekend, has entered his minimalist phase.

But minimal to Gatti were a set of skinny serpentine tables decorated in cardinal red cloths, a snaky row of lit votives and an occasional clear vase with one perfect white French tulip in it. The table plan with each one named for the women in Pablo Picasso's life (Dora, Olga, Eva, Paloma, et al) was eliciting from Bowes comments like: "I'm gonna wring his neck." Hyperbole, we suspect. Gatti was still alive at dinner's end.

The yearly event is MOMA's way of saying "thank you" to its big donors (a minimum of $10,000 per year, and up), and this year's dinner - smoked salmon appetizers, squab stuffed with wild mushrooms and bread pudding for dessert - featured guest speaker John Richardson, author of "A Life of Picasso: The Painter of Modern Life," the second in four projected tomes about the artist whose wives, mistresses and daughter lent their names to Gatti's tables.

The evening, underwritten by Cartier and the Union Bank of Switzerland, began with a cocktail party. Cartier CEO Simon Critchell and his wife, Renee, flew in from New York. "This is not our first visit to the museum," said the affable Critchell. "When we were here for the Symphony last fall, we sneaked off for the afternoon and spent half a day. It's a marvelous place to see art." Cartier provided the favors for the evening, one copy per couple of Richardson's $55 tome, which caused one anguished woman to cry: "But we're not a couple." She had to flip a coin with her escort for custody of the book.

Jack Lane, the museum's sleek director, called Richardson "one of the most distinguished biographers on the planet," and the droll and erudite Britisher lived up to his billing.

Richardson lectured for a half-hour in the Schwab Auditorium at MOMA on Picasso's 1907 masterpiece, "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon." After an initial battle with his slide projector, Richardson launched into a mini-talk about the Demoiselles, Apollinaire, the Cubists (most of whom were Pablo's pals in Provence in the late '40s), Picasso's fascination with brothels and bare-breasted whores and his habit of cadging ideas, form and iconography from other artists like El Greco. We half expected a pop quiz at lecture's end.

Not many of the high-ticket donors seemed to possess their own Picasso. O.J. Shansby sans Gary ( "He's home with the flu" ) was wearing brown tweed and gold lame Chanel. "I owned a Picasso print, "The Dove,' " she said. "In college. But how 'bout Jim Dine? Does he count?"

Collector Allan Rappaport of Tiburon, with Adriana Pope, allowed that while he was fond of the Cubist period, Picasso wasn't a particular favorite. "I prefer Georges Braque," he said, "but I appreciate Picasso's breakthroughs. "Actually," chimed in Pope in a backless brown satin dress with a lovely plunging front,

"we're collectors of Paloma."

Richardson is a collector, more of people than paintings. He has the knack of being at the right place at the right time, he said, as Christie's agent in New York before their showroom opened. "Every year, somebody would come in with a Mona Lisa, swearing it was the real thing," he laughed. And every year, I'd have to tell them it was s- -."

A dogged researcher, the man knows everyone from Nick Dunne in New York to rocker Mick Jagger, whose chateau in France he has visited. "Mick and I have been friends forever," he explained. "He's got this marvelous chateau, La Forchet, with fabulous gardens. And no, he doesn't dig for a second. He just points and says, "I want it over there.' " &lt;